Video Gamology - A Review

Oh god. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh god.

So once upon a time, I made a blog post about Ideas That Would Never Happen. In this post, I talked about a time not so long ago (6 years, actually) that I made comics. I made them with sprites that I found on the internet but because I was young and stupid regarding internet content, I never credited the original people who made the sprites. For that, I'm sorry and I will credit you now. I used many different kinds of sprite art, all of which can be found at The Spriters Resource, an enormous resource with sprite art from different video games.

These comics were...well, they were...

Kirby, you shouldn't play with bombs. It's dangerous.

The comic series was called Video Gamology. It starred Kirby, Sonic, and Shadow. Mario was a supporting character who occasionally dropped by to enlighten the comic with some important information.

Brilliant.

Shadow was a very depressing character who never wanted to be involved in anything the other two were doing. The only thing he enjoyed doing was beating up Kirby. Sonic was the voice of reason in the group, and admittedly, a reflection of myself as a middle schooler, stupidity and all. Kirby was...um...

Oh, Kirby. What've they done to you?

Kirby was the unfortunate fall guy of the three. Everything conceivably horrible only happened to him. Kirby was the exact opposite of the character we've become familiar with: a bombastic and vulgar loudmouth who constantly did very stupid things including acting in pornographic films, attacking others for the hell of it, threatening to kill himself for attention (as you can see in the image above), and many other indescribable actions. On top of that, he would constantly be tortured by Sonic and Shadow on many occasions, including being used a Christmas ornament, and did not have any other friends who he could relate to. Typing that really breaks my heart.

We're here for ya, buddy.

This has only been either segments or parts of comics but for the purposes of this review, we will be looking at one comic which summarizes the entire series in one comic. Ladies and gentleman, this is comic 22 of Video Gamology titled "New Video Gamology 1", originally posted on DeviantArt on September 8th, 2008.

Self-aware characters. That's never been done before.

This comic was meant to be a reboot, bringing back all of the characters and putting them into new scenarios. I had three comic ideas ready to go when I released this one, but the reception (only 1 view) was disappointing and I lost any kind of interest to continue with the strips.

This was the first time the characters would speak with uncensored swears. I thought it was the most hilarious idea but it seems to pad out the attempts of humor by filling it with profanity. You can also see how piecemeal the presentation is, with a basic understanding of the comic strip format but with a lack of animated expressions from the characters.

Look at the frown on Kirby's face. That's art.

The strip's humor was very juvenile for its time, doing its best to simulate (copy) South Park's kind of humor but leaving out the intelligent satire. Punchlines for strips would usually just be really gross, depressing, or racially insensitive. And some times, there just wouldn't be a joke at the end. Some strips were also really huge so there would only be occasional moments of humor dispersed with really weird moments like Kirby swimming in a sea of shit, or Kirby eating a tomato and becoming gay. Yes, that was a punchline for a strip. No, I did not get a lobotomy recently.

*canned sitcom laughter*

Despite how hard I've been on the comic so far, I will admit this comic shows a lot of progression from the earlier ones I made. I found the appropriate font for character dialogue, I got a better understanding of each character so that they could play off one another and even Kirby became less of a punching bag. When I started making them, it would take 1-2 hours to finish a strip. At the time, it was time well spent.

"...returning from the grave..." Nope.

I think if anything has shamed me from writing about this sooner, it's the fact that this is the worst kind of fan-fiction. When people think about ridiculous scenarios happening to popular characters (and I don't mean rule 34 kind of things), this comic strip is exactly what that is. Children's characters that swear up a storm, blood, guts, and violence at every turn, and adolescent humor. What this strip is is a type of wish fulfillment that fulfilled my basic desires of humor whenever I wanted. I guess I can understand why I would want to make this kind of comic strip but...geez.

Will I ever make another comic? No, but not for the reasons you might think. It's not like I've advanced in terms of humor but comic strips just don't appeal to me as much as they did when I was in middle school. If you want more intelligent and inspired humor featuring these characters, check out Brawl in the Family. It's well worth your time.

We'll miss you, buddy!

Thanks for reaching the bottom. I have both a YouTube channel and a Vimeo channel. I'm also on Twitter and Tumblr. If you like reading other silly things by me, join the RS Facebook group for updates and info on my projects. We'll see you next year!*

*Not really.

"Mental" Notes: Nothing's Happened to You Yet!!

"Mental" Notes is a bimillenial column that features specific ideas I've had that can't be fleshed out into a full short story/short film/blog post. On certain posts, it's almost meant to be a public brainstorming forum. This post was originally thought up as a continuation to the Now What? series.

I wanted to continue Now What? as a way to update all of you on my life as it was happening and as it was going so far. But as I started writing this post, I found that I had a very angsty/bitchy tone to what I originally thought was insightful. In fact, even the opening I was intending to use now seems very pretentious in hindsight. Although halfway through it, I acknowledged my dismissive atttitude and made fun of it in the end, I thought the post itself was too short and that it needed more depth before I was willing to post it. As it turned out, however, during the summer I wrote this, I accomplished many, many things which make this post, for me at least, very outdated. As I looked over this again to revise as a "Mental" Note, I also realized that I misquoted Louis CK's joke about 20 year olds, and that nearly derailed the entire point of the post. I'm finally posting this, exactly as I typed it almost a year ago, so that I can finally put it to rest and focus on other things...hint, hint. Questions/comments are always welcome!  

 

I am twenty years old, a fourth of the way to the promised land. This has been the most profound statement I've made this year. I have recently completed my second year in college and am now a junior.

Becoming 20 years old should feel like a profound moment filled with truth and responsibility but that should exemplify as to how naive I am if I think becoming older is equivalent to gaining life experience.

I constantly feel imprisoned in "my" own home, and I always think that life continues going on repeat; every day my man-boobs become more developed, my eyeballs more agile due to constant stimulation from the internet.

But every time I come up with complaints about how life is going, the words of Louis CK emanate in my brain, "Nothing's happened to you!" 

Louis CK: Live at Carnegie Hall (20 Year Olds)

Yes, nothing has happened to me. In fact, at this point, life has never been so fucking pleasant. There is very little conflict between all of my family members due to my parents' separation, my brother is doing well in school, I am fulfilling my parents' dream of going to college, getting an education, getting a job, retiring comfortably, and rotting in the ground.

I am a terrible example of Louis CK's very poignant statement regarding the young, how we seem to entitle ourselves beyond everyone else and can only be satisfied with our own lives if our goals have been met. If any complaint I make can be easily solved by effort, I have no reason to complain ever again. But if my brother beats me in another Mario Party session, I will fucking kill everything. Because life sucks. Man.

Thanks for reaching the bottom. I have both a YouTube channel and a Vimeo channel. I'm also on Twitter and Tumblr. If you like being continuously annoyed by extremely obvious hints about future posts, join the RS Facebook group for updates and info on my projects. Take care, everyone!

The Comedy Journal (of Certain Observations)

H-hi there. Happy 2014.

It's been a while since I've updated the blog so it should be fair to let you guys know exactly what's going on. First of all, the blog is going through some massive changes. As you can tell on the tabs, some things have been changed. For one, "short films" has its own tab now since the blog will become a focus on video-related projects from now on. What this also means is that there will be more periodic posts detailing the process of film-making (that I know at this point in my career). This means behind-the-scenes photos of short films I'm working on, and maybe even some commentaries if I can figure out how to do that. This is because I've realized that in my three years of maintaining the blog that I enjoy writing anything if it's related to film. If I ever do write a short story/poem, I will post it on the blog but expect more film-related posts from now on. I feel like I've said the same thing three times so I will move on. The "Other Things" tab includes both Presenters posts and Now What? posts. I think this will make the blog more interesting to read and for me, at least, it'll make the blog worth investing in. I look forward to update you all on progress on The College Student: Nutrition and any other projects I'll work on in the near future. I will also try to diversify the blog with occasional reviews, recommendations, academic papers, and unearthing certain..."works of art" from my past. You've been warned. 

And with that, what the hell is the Comedy Journal? Well, my dear reader, I will tell you. I took a class last semester on comedy films. One of the assignments we had was to keep a journal of moments that we personally found very humorous. The catch was that we could only write down humorous observances, not situations that happened to us. We could also write about comical things that we found on the internet. So this is the comedy journal I turned in for the class. Iz purty gud. (groans)

Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013
I was walking by Adelbert, walking to my next class, and watched the many other "faceless" students also walking hastily to their next objective. A van waited to turn right on Euclid. Across the street, a student stood very still as he called someone.
I thought about a white van full of pranksters that see the student. Their friend, Emily, has been talking with them and the van door is open. The driver says, "We're gonna get him good! Grab her!"
Emily says, "What?!" The guys grab and pull her into the van, leaving the student shocked by what he's just seen. The driver laughs heartily until he looks in his side mirror and sees the panicked student struggling to dial his phone. The van swerves into traffic and stops in front of the student, with the guilty driver trying to explain himself. The student does not think that the prank was very funny and it doesn't help that Emily continues to play the role of the captured woman to further incriminate her boyfriend, the van driver.
 
Friday, August 30, 2013
A student grimaced when he sees a wet floor sign used as a doorstop right at the entrance of a bathroom, not wanting to think about why the floor is wet. It didn't help that he walked toward the urinal and made squeaking noises at every step.
 
A student gets a hot dog from the dining room. He gets the brilliant idea to put a slice of cheese in his hot dog. He waits until he gets back to his seat. He wraps the cheese around the sausage and is puzzled when the cheese unwraps itself. He keeps trying to wrap it again and again but the cheese will not bend to his will.
 
Wednesday, September 5, 2013
I was eating in the dining hall and noticed that younger students tend to go sit with people they already know. As they sit in their chairs, satisfied that they have found their common group of friends, I reminded myself that I have my own group of friends, the table and chairs at the corner of the dining halls. They are always in the same place and every time, they look forward to seeing me as I assure them that I will never abandon them. Never, ever.
 
Wednesday, September 12, 2013
On the left side of the bridge, there’s a serviceably sized parking structure for students, faculty, and the sort. The building isn’t completely rectangular; in fact, the roof slants downward but the rest of the building is perfectly rectangular. It looks like there’s a large, invisible weight sitting on top of the building, literally bending the roof into a curve.
 
Thursday, September 19, 2013
I have a fairly good view of downtown Cleveland from my building/residential house/dorm. Directly across from my window, there is a tall building with bright, clear lights blaring out from the window. The window looks like an adorable, confused, round ghost straight out of Pac-Man and at night, its eyes light up in the midst of the somewhat dreary Cleveland skyline.
 
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
 A long yet beautiful day was approaching its end. The bright, yellowy glow from the sun's dying rays crossed paths with the tall, glass windows until landing on some exhausted student's face. The young student was reading a complicated book on Philosophy with an even more complicated title. Suddenly, President Obama awoke the young student and told him that he was taking his seat. The student jumped up and landed on his bum. His glasses falling to the floor, he quickly looked around hastily to see if the president was still there. Alas, upon seeing the potted plants placed on the opposite ends of the windows, he remembered he was not at the White House, but at the marshmallow-y chairs found at Kelvin Smith Library.
 
 Friday, September 27, 2013
The windmill: a proof of Case's commitment to the future to renewed energy and flying cars. The old medical building with a single smokestack sticking from the top: the image Case Photoshops out of every pamphlet when they mention their progressive environmentally friendly agenda. Practically standing across the street from each other, these two titans are ready to wage war against each other, a battle no one will pay attention to due to the urgent examinations that must be taken care of first.
 
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
An old house right behind my dorm building was torn down recently. It had been boarded up and it was a matter of time before the bulldozers finally brought it down. The walls and debris were swept away, leaving behind the trails that look suspiciously like crop circles. It's only a matter of time before the UFO's are redirected from Roswell and land instead in University Circle.
 
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Brawl In the Family comic strip: Sonic's Eyes
Sonic is a video game character with a rather unusual design. His eyes aren't separated like other characters/humans but are instead placed together. It doesn't make sense without some kind of image. Anyway, this humorous and cute comic strip makes three jokes at Sonic's expense about his unusual design, one where his pupils intersect at the center, one where he loses his contact lenses which look like goggles, and the last one where Sonic looks cross-eyed much to his friend's dismay who runs away frightened by what he's just seen. Sonic removes his sleep mask and prompts two bugs to fly away.
 
Thursday, October 16, 2013
I'm talking with a friend and the topic of humor comes up. She talks about how she is not completely sure why she laughs or chuckles at certain things. Knowing how sensitive she is about certain things, I try to explain my sense of humor. I have difficulty explaining my morbid and cynical sense of humor to her until I try to make an example of it. In a single breath, I explain to her how, in a few billion years, the human race as we know it will be extinct. Shortly after, in astronomy scale, Earth will be swallowed up by the Sun with the rest of the Solar System to follow. The Sun will blow up and then the universe will continue to spin around until it expands forever and eventually freeze into place forever and ever. We're laughing as hard as we ever had at the sheer absurdity of this reality that we will never see.
 
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
We watch the film Borat in my Jewish Image in Popular Film class. Despite the film's offensive nature, it's one of my favorite satirical comedies of the past few years. Curiously, I looked up the Wikipedia article about the film and read the "Controversy" section. The amount of lawsuits levied against the film was astounding. In connection with the Carnivalesque, it was understandable that most people who made fools of themselves on camera would find it difficult to laugh at themselves. But the fact people's first reaction was to sue and try to win some money for the misuse of their public image shows how little they learned from the film in the first place, a film made to expose hypocrisy in the US in the most daring way possible.
 
Saturday, November 9, 2013
My suite-mate and I talk for a very long time about nonsense. At some point, he stumbles over and almost falls down as I reach out to catch him. He plants his feet on the ground and says, "I decided to fall down but then I decided not to." It took me a while to compose myself after laughing really hard at his comment. It took a while longer to explain why the moment was hysterical in the first place.
 
Tuesday, November 15, 2013 
Nature reared its ugly head again and blew away every single leaf on the tree in front of my building. Every branch looked a thin and crooked line that would have been drawn by a kindergartener. I also couldn't stop but think about how each branch also looked laundry being wrung clean especially by how much it flickered and waved around in the wind.

Thanks for reaching the bottom. I have both a YouTube channel and a Vimeo channel. I'm also on Twitter and Tumblr. If you like this, even a bit, join the RS Facebook group for updates and info on my projects. Take care, everyone!

The College Student: Optimism

This was a pet project of mine, filmed simultaneously with another project which I'll talk about another time. The idea stemmed from an actual thought I once had while I was waiting at the line of Einstein's Bagels. It was a difficult day and I wanted to forget about my troubles via flaky bread and moist eggs mixed with melted cheese. I didn't want to make a fuss for anybody unfortunate enough to have wait in line with me so I told myself, "Just think positively right now. Think about anything, really." I tried to change my visible facial expression as I thought about things. The first thought I had is exactly what you see in the short: "Positive, positive charges, electrons, neutrons, atoms, the atomic bomb, Hiroshima." At first, I was mortified by the thought, but I couldn't help but chuckle at how quickly my thoughts delineated into madness. I tried again and that thought also quickly went to hell. I quickly hammered out a screenplay about a college student struggling to focus his thoughts as his paper due date edged closer and closer. I kept the project to myself until I shared it with fellow writer/director Zach Lerner who convinced me to go through with it. I fell in love with the project from that point on, and I wanted to make sure every comic detail was just right before I started filming it. To this day, it's the project that I'm most proud of because of how honest it is compared to other short films I've made. As with any project, there are many things I can't help but nit-pick about, but we'll get to that shortly.

I knew, from the first draft, how risky the material was compared to other projects I've made and I knew that I was dealing with a very volatile concept and anything that crossed the line would've made it tragic instead of comical. It was specifically when I started looking for the public domain clips that I became increasingly guilty with the subject matter. The following four words, in particular, "Hiroshima; The Great Depression; Poverty; Suicide" were really difficult to find appropriate clips of.
Hiroshima: the footage in the short film is original color footage of a US army crew surveying the damage at Hiroshima 9 months later. In this context, the footage is very voyeuristic at how it depicts the tragedy.
The Great Depression: I tried to find very brief clips of people waiting in a soup kitchen but most of it was not in the public domain. What you guys see is footage of tractors in the middle of the 1931 Dust Bowl.
Poverty: the clips I found were really depressing, most of it being starving children in Africa. It and Hiroshima was the first time I hesitated completely and had a moral dilemma before going through with something for comedic purposes. What's in the film is just street performers performing under the bridge in Las Vegas.
Suicide: From the moment I wrote the screenplay, I knew this word would be very problematic. I originally intended showing a noose swinging left and right but I thought that it would be too morbid although the footage I used is also very morbid. What you see a Parisian inventor testing out his parachute system at the very top of the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately, the parachute did not deploy so you see this person fall to his death. It's cut short in the film(we see the person fall) but the implications are there.
Bunnies Humping: Hmm...oh boy, this phrase. When I wrote the screenplay, I tried to figure out what kind of thought would work as a punchline. Then I thought about the most positive and tasteful thing a positive person could think of: BUNNIES, running along a flowery field! How could bunnies go wrong? Why, with the Kama Sutra, of course! The film takes on a completely different meaning once we consider that the college student does think more positively now but with bunny humping as his catalyst. It also comments on how ridiculous the idea of positive thinking is considering how fluid and free flowing a person's thoughts can be. This is also my swipe at meditation as it's something that I've always had difficulty with. Considering how pessimistic my thinking can be from time to time, consider this as a condensed yet filtered look at my process of thought. The really cute piano music that plays was originally from the video of bunnies.

Here are several technical/narrative problems I had with the film. I thought the opening with me running around in circles went on for way too long, and could've been cut short to at least 10-15 seconds. I didn't notice this until after I had uploaded it but when my character says "Bunnies humping", the audio cuts out so you only hear "Hu-". It didn't seem like anyone caught that, though. I'm also very conflicted about the ending and wasn't sure if my last line was good enough or if it should've ended with Sergiy closing the door on my face.

In short, I really enjoyed making this and am very pleased with the feedback I've gotten on it. I look forward to the next project I work on, whatever it may be. Oh, all right.
It's the College Student: Nutrition. Coming to your computer screens in the near future.

Please check out Sergiy Turchyn's channel. He is a fantastic composer and a hilarious person to be around.

"Mental Notes": More Unrelated Sentences.

More irrelevant words. Enjoy. 

A Bolshevik revolution that only resolved the issue of whether or not everyone involved wanted a free tea cozy in their sex dungeon.

Four men walking in the desert searching for the meaning life via some stone tablets only to realize that one of them will die from stomach cancer to which God laughs and runs away at the plight of the humans being distracted by reality once again.

Sweat pouring down his face fills up the bucket the miners use to put out the fire only to forget its a gas fire and the sodium makes the fire become a basketball hoop that collapses into the nearest day-care center.

The first film ever invented was about to people playing ping pong while the camera person screamed in pain the entire time and begged them to stop.

Edison company is driven to bankruptcy due to the amount of people pirating electric currents from the Navy Bay.

The nicest Neo-Nazi in the world gets his own talk show and convinces all of America that Nazism is at least an option to consider only to die from choking on a blunt toothpick.

A notebook filled with many references to throwing up on command which is being used by the military as a more humane form of chemical warfare.

The power plug stays plugged into the wrong socket which sucks out all of the muscles from the bodybuilder's thighs.

Arley walked down the street while everyone spat at him every second which was the happiest day of his life...until he gets married to a bear.

A dog blasting out fire from his eyeballs as all of the other dogs in heat spontaneously combust from the impracticality of the scenario.

The malfunctioning laptop jumps into the air, spins around, throws itself out of the window, twirls around into the air until it smashes and blows up a school bus full of incestuous children.

An acrid smell wafted into the air, entering into the pipes and doing something predictable.

The punished writer whips himself in the back with an infected electric coil that grabs his ribs and pulls them out, playing them like faulty bagpipes.

The talking doll with its bright and colorful teeth blind every woman that entered the bachelor's room who was being led into his room so that he could have an intense political discussion with them.

A figgy banana pudding was snuck into every fried chicken in the tri-state area, causing an abnormal amount of flow.

People wearing glasses have a certain amount of self-respect that people wearing contacts does not but they just have not figured it out yet.

A yellow jacket with red stripes and blue zippers and green slacks and purple underwear and yellow socks and a red tie and a brown shoe and a sky blue imagination.

Lights illuminated the runway, leading the plane into the magic pool full of howler monkeys that hurls oranges at the tinted windows.

Bubbles sank into the ground, dripped into the ground, dried up on the stripper's back, warmed up on the interpreter's lips, burnt up in the lawyer's briefcase, and exploded in the center of the universe.

People picked up the cross and threw it to the dumpster which became a gleaming gold dumpster that spit all of its garbage back at the people directly into the face.

The dominatrix whose night job was a teacher for the blind who instructed them on the proper ways to wail in pain while being typed up into the college student's dissertation.

The cat who wagged its tail every time a child died of terminal cancer.

The cute couple who had their tongues in their mouths at every hour in the day even when they had to take a break in the public common room with all of the virgins and homeless people and such others.

Facebook, the maitre'ds escape from reality, the plumber's descent into the plum tree, the lawyer's regression into a natal state, the entire planet's favorite form of fornication.

A couple of guys went to a bar where they saw a rabbi, a priest, and a racist. Afraid of becoming a punchline, the four guys left the bar and went home and killed themselves.

The fan floated into the air, its individual blades slicing through the floors of the basement, white gleaming sheaths of brightness cutting through the random black hole that wandered inside, emitting a golden shower of lollipops that stuck themselves onto the walls and were nearly impossible to remove when it was cleaning day.

A computer made to cater to the needs of the entire public imploded into itself due to it being a time paradox and led to the end of the universe.

A table at midnight, the glow from the outdoor lampshade lighting up the immigration papers strewn about, its individual screws loosen up and hitting the floor, the weight of the table scrounging down from the immense weight placed against it.

The romantic weights danced together in the sweaty weight builders room, rolling along the pavement the weight builder spat on after his 20 years of cardio workouts.

The trumpets blew, the waiters waited, the Davids sat at their chairs, the prostitutes hid the cash, the Jews did Jewy things, and the politically correct people decided to leave the sentence.

A bright sunny day appeared out of nowhere for the holocaust survivor, chewing on the latest supply of sympathy bread from the Russians, who cried out when the rain poured down and metaphorically melted the bread.

A cup of Raisin bran cereal is all you need to get ahead in the morning, just a couple of cupfuls poured straight down your gullet then forced in further with your trusty rusted plunger, and you are ready to conquer the day and be rejected by every woman you know who do not know how respond when they see the plunger sticking out from the back of your neck.

We're not using that one stick of butter.

A woman walks outside of her door for the first time in eight years and dies when a single dog chew of her leg and all of her hot air fly out.

A wrist popped out of the ground to the horrified sight of no one, and walked over to the next tomb and asked for my peanuts to which the shotgun-wielding monkey replied, "No," and fired, blasting away the pregnant woman's left index toe finger.

In the darkness, the windows only revealed the remnants of the few light sources still lurking about in the rat's cave.

Words landed on the page one by one, smacking the plain white paper like the most effectual gears on a bicycle, continuing the pattern without haste as the groundbreaking novel was on the verge to be made.  

The problematic issue of the company's currency confused the coffee breaker's conversation about their compensation in the controllable company picnic that coalesced many captivating complaints that all the cun...oh dear...I seem to have run out of words.

Consider this post as a mental exercise. The blog will return fairly shortly with more insightful posts. Thanks for your patience and be sure to follow the diddly-dos.